Owen Seaman

“ High-hearted ever, strong in faith and prayer,
We ask what offering we may consecrate,
What humble service share.
To steel our souls against the lust of ease;
To find our welfare in the general good;
To hold together, merging all degrees
In one wide brotherhood;—
To teach that he who saves himself is lost ”

“ Where men for all men's sake have died
In this the War of Liberty
(The same whose figure points the pilot's way,
Larger than life, in New York Bay) ;—
If you prefer to fold your hands
And watch us, at your guarded ease,
Straining our strength to sweep the lands
Clean of a deadly foul disease,
Which must, unless our courage find a cure,
Fall on your children, swift and sure;—
Stay out by all means; none shall ask
The help that your free will declined ”

“ God, of His love, would have so fair a life
Crowned with a death as fair.
He might not lead the battle as of old,
But, as of old, among his own he went,
Breathing a faith that never once grew cold,
A courage still unspent. ”

“ I wronged you. There is Belgium, where your sword
Has bled to death a free and gallant race
Whose life you held in ward;
Where on your trail the smoking land lies bare
Of hearth and homestead, and the dead babe clings
About its murdered mother's breast—ah, there,
Yes, you have done great things! ”

“ Having made this protest I have little but praise for the performance itself, though I think Sir Herbert Tree's own lethargy was not wholly to be excused by the hampering rotundity of his girth; and that all this deliberate sword-play, where you wait till your enemy has got his right guard betfore you arrange a concussion between your weapon and his, fails to impose itself as an image of War. ”

“ Afforded copy for our ribald rhymes
By your behaviour;
We nursed no malice; nay, we thanked you much
Because your head-piece, swollen like a tumour,
Lent to a dullish world the needed touch
Of saving humour. ”

“ BETWEEN MIDNIGHT AND MORNING.
[Lines for King Albert's Book, published to-day for the benefit of The Daily Telegraph's Belgian Relief Fund.]
You that have faith to look with fearless eyes
Beyond the tragedy of a world at strife,
And trust that out of night and death shall rise
The dawn of ampler life ”

“ The Spectator.
“Calverley had not, or did not show in his verses, Mr. Seaman’s critical acuteness and depth.... As a critic in the form of parody, Mr. Seaman is without a rival.... Of his serious poems an ode to Queen Wilhelmina is a very graceful accomplishment of a difficult task.”––Mr. G. S. Street in The Pall Mall Magazine.
“Mr. Seaman is what we may call a critic of mannerisms, and a very keen critic to boot. His is a useful, not a merely destructive, function. He is no wanton debaser of the poetic currency. One might rather call him a touchstone of true merit in poetry.” ”

“ THOMAS OF THE LIGHT HEART.
["The Cologne Gazette" tells us that we are lacking in understanding of the high seriousness of the war; that we use sporting expressions about it. "The Times," referring to this criticism, points out that, though we do not pretend, like the Germans, to make a religion of war, our sporting instinct at least enables us to recognise that to draw the sword on women and children is "not cricket."] ”

“ For a play that made pretence to a serious purpose there was far too much time thrown away on more trivialities. At first the exigencies of the stage demanded compression. The news of the ultimatum to Germany, the mobilisation, the rush to enlist, the attack on Germany's commerce, were all stuffed into the space of a few minutes. But the whole of the Third Act (laid in the kitchen) was wantonly wasted over the thinnest of domestic humour. There is a light side, thank Heaven, even to war ”

“ But they could never have guessed that Herr Tiessen, author of a shilling guide to the intentions of the composer, would attach a transcendental significance to the conduct of Potiphar's Wife "Through the unknown divine," he informs us, "which is still new and mysterious to her, an imperious desire awakens in her to fathom, to possess this world"—the world, that is to say, which Joseph's imagination creates in the course of an exhibition dance. ”

“ Can wash the blood-guilt from your hands?
Make your account with Him as best you can.
What other hope has this New Year to give?
For outraged earth has laid on you a ban
Not to be lifted while you live. ”

“ Ere warmth of Spring had stirred the wintry lands—
Spring that for him had no renewing breath—
He went apart to wait with folded hands.
The lingering feet of Death.
Long had he laid his burnished armour by,
But still we flew his banner for a sign,
Still felt his spirit like a rallying cry
Hearten the fighting line. ”

“ I commend Sir Herbert Tree's obvious desire to do his duty as an actor-manager and a patriot. His true intent is all for our good; and he supports his choice of a play in which Falstaff is the central obsession by a printed quotation from the words of "That Wise Ruler Queen Elizabeth of England," where she says: "'Tis simple mirth keepeth high courage alive." ”

“ The form of phrase, the inflexion of voice, the dancing light of humour, make up the motley which is the true jester’s ‘only wear’; and under his flashes of merriment is a sober, sound philosophy. This, after all, is the only kind of humour that lasts ... it is easy to appreciate, difficult to acquire; and Mr. Owen Seaman, having acquired it with all the felicity of good humour and art, stands practically alone among the humourists of the hour.... His technical quality seems to strengthen with every new volume. ”

“ As I have taken occasion to tell them from time to time, God is sparing no effort in favour of My brave armies. The noble courage with which they have crushed a defenceless peasantry (who, by the way, do not seem to share My recognition of the Deity's support of Our methods) has proved them to be the authorised medium of the Divine vengeance. ”

“ And you shall think on altars left forlorn,
On temple-aisles made desolate at your nod,
Where never a white-robed choir this holy morn
Shall chant their greeting to the Birth of God.
Peace? There is none for you, nor can be none ”

“ And labour of the long unlovely days.
Yet here's the test to prove you kin
With those to whom we trust our fate,
Sober and steadfast, clean and straight,
In that stern school of discipline
Hardened to war against the foe within. ”

“ And now they've got him under guard.
That doesn't hurt you; you're all right;
Your easy conscience takes no blame:
But he, poor boy, with morning's light,
He eats his heart out, sick with shame. ”

“ Sportsman and dealer in general stores, his habit of hanging vaguely about Zulu kraals and Zulu impis, on nodding terms with just anybody, did not greatly increase my pride of race, notwithstanding the statement made to him by Mameena: "I shall never love another man as I love you, however many I marry." ”

“ John's eldest sister regretted the war because she had some nice friends in Germany, but she caught the spirit of menial service from her sisters, of whom the younger was a stage-flapper of the loudest. ”

“ In almost the only case where quick movement is here demanded one becomes conscious of the intrusion of words. When he knows that the relief of Pomfret depends upon his instant action, Lisle still finds time for conversations with his servant, with Miriam and with the doctor, and for a couple of well-sustained soliloquies. ”

“ I don't blame the boy for not knowing the rule that forbids one art to trespass on the domain of another; but there is no excuse for Herr Strauss, who must have been well aware that, for the conveyance of any but the most obvious emotions, mute dancing can never be a satisfactory substitute for articulate poetry.
However, Potiphar's guests seemed better instructed than I was, for they threw off their apathy and took quite an intelligent interest in Joseph's pas soul. ”

“ He left me well content
Thus to have communed, heart to heart,
With one so innocent.
And still I marvelled, having scanned
Those eyes so full of Truth,
"Oh why do men misunderstand
This bright and blameless youth?" ”

“ If ever a woman's beauty shall ensnare
My soul into such sin as he hath sinned"—
these passages, even if the title of the play had not prepared us, afford fair warning of the way in which things have got to go. In fact it is all very simple and straightforward, and (on the constructive side) Hellenic. Per-haps indeed the treatment is a little too direct, and the tragedy moves too quickly to its consummation (thirty or forty minutes suffice for the reading of it) . It might serve its publisher (of the Bodley Head) as one of a series to be entitled: "Half-hours with the Best Sinners." ”

“ THE USES OF OCEAN.
(Lines written in an irresponsible holiday mood.)
To people who allege that we
Incline to overrate the Sea,
I answer, "We do not;
Apart from being coloured blue,
It has its uses not a few—
I cannot think what we should do. ”

“ ANOTHER "SCRAP OF PAPER."
["The Times" of October 1st vouches for the following Army Order issued by the German Kaiser on August 19th: "It is my Royal and Imperial Command that you concentrate your energies, for the immediate present, upon one single purpose, and that is that you address all your skill and all the valour of my soldiers to exterminate first the treacherous English and walk over General French's contemptible little Army."]
Wilhelm, I do not know your whereabouts.
The gods elude us. ”